a bruce the bear dinner party and you're invited!

Hotel Bruce is out in US stores today, and Disney Books gave us an advanced copy to check out.  We loved it!  For our review of the book, go here. Bruce the bear loves to read food blogs and cook up fancy recipes with somewhat outlandish ingredients, so we thought it would be fun to create a dinner party menu inspired by Bruce and his love of tasty food.  

Here is our forest-fun menu sure to make your little bears happy: 

To get the party started on a sweet and sour note, let's make some lavender lemonade sweetened with plenty of a bear's favorite - honey! My kids aren't super adventurous taste-testers, but a vendor at our local farmer's market makes a version of this that they love.  Add or subtract the amount of honey used based on your own taste preference. 

recipe that serves two bears: 

1. brew lavender tea with two lavender tea bags and two cups of boiling water. 
2. squeeze 1/2 cup fresh lemon juice.
3. combine in a pitcher. 
4. add preferred amount of honey (we used about 1/4 cup) and stir. 
5. add ice and enjoy! 

For our main course, we made some super-easy but still tasty salmon. 

each pouch serves one bear: 

1. Gather up parchment paper, a stick of butter at room temperature, dried Italian herb mix, salt, pepper, and one salmon fillet per person.
2. blend two tablespoons of herbs with soft butter.
3. tear parchment into 10x10 inch squares. 
4. place one salmon fillet on parchment square.  place two pats of herb butter on top of fish.
5. fold parchment like an envelope and place in 400 degree oven for fifteen minutes.

For our sweet grand finale, we have a fancy forest cake with lots and lots of chocolate!  This is a traditional chocolate roll cake filled with chocolate ganache that we decorated with mushroom toadstools made from raspberries and a tube of marzipan that can be found in most grocery stores.  Our gnome friends guarded the cake from little bear fingers until it was time to serve it up.  This recipe serves either ten bears now or five bears now with the other half frozen for another day.  I used the domestic goddess Mary Berry's chocolate swiss roll recipe.  Her directions always produce flawlessly yummy results!  You can find that recipe here.  

Well, I don't know about you, but we're stuffed!  Thanks for reading today and hopefully this sets you on your way to create your own beary good forest feast!